


Trigger (How To Do Things With Words)

by nixwilliams



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-21
Updated: 2006-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24552682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nixwilliams/pseuds/nixwilliams
Summary: Somewhere in the suburbs of some half-assed sprawl of a half-baked city in Arkansas, he filled the gas tank, walked into the station, grabbed an armful of junk and told the guy at the desk,I want all this and two hundred dollars. The dude smiled real big, slapped the money down on the counter, and said,Sure thing. It’s on the house. Andy muttered something like,Thanks, and made it half way down the street before pulling over and throwing up in the gutter.I see you, he thought.Bye-bye.
Kudos: 2





	Trigger (How To Do Things With Words)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gelasius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelasius/gifts).



> Re-posting works from DW/LJ.
> 
> For [gelasius](/users/gelasius), who requested "Any fic, essays, or picspam extolling the virtues of Ash, Andy or Andy/Ash" for Christmas. This is like fanfic of fanfic. It occurs after the events of “Simon Said” and before our story (LJ link) [This Frikkin' Rocks (or, How Andy Met Ash)](https://spn-roadhouse.livejournal.com/13168.html).
> 
>  _How To Do Things With Words_ is a book by J.L. Austin in which he discusses speech-act theory and "performative utterances" - i.e. those things that, when said, perform the action they describe.

After Tracey almost died – after the night he moved his finger a fraction of an inch too far and discovered it was so easy to kill a person – he stopped trusting himself.  
  
Trace made it obvious that there wasn’t going to be any kind of forgiveness, not for a long while. _I’m just confused_ , she’d said. Her hand was poised to shut the door, and her face was already closed. _I need some space_. Best thing to do was get out of there, let her forget all about it, forget all about him. Because her eyes flinched every time he opened his mouth, and at the end he couldn’t even say goodbye because all he could hear was, _I see you_ , and the crack of a gunshot. He started driving.  
  
Somewhere in the suburbs of some half-assed sprawl of a half-baked city in Arkansas, he filled the gas tank, walked into the station, grabbed an armful of junk and told the guy at the desk, _I want all this and two hundred dollars_. The dude smiled real big, slapped the money down on the counter, and said, _Sure thing. It’s on the house_. Andy muttered something like, _Thanks_ , and made it half way down the street before pulling over and throwing up in the gutter. _I see you_ , he thought. _Bye-bye_.  
  
His voice was the first thing to go.  
  
A week and a half later he crawled out the back of his van and broke his second last twenty on a coffee that tasted worse than anything he or Trace or Webber or anyone at work had ever produced. Worse, even, than the stuff Gemma tried to force on him the last time he’d visited. He wandered into a nearby park, scuffing through morning-wet grass, and hunched over onto a bench to keep warm. Some woman in a pink tracksuit was out jogging. He pulled Sam’s number from his pocket. _You don’t have to be alone in this_ , he thought, and messily folded, unfolded, refolded the slip of paper. The pink jogger went past twice, then stopped in front of him and handed him a business card. _My church has free breakfast at ten thirty. Two blocks over_. Andy nodded.  
  
At eleven o’clock he looked at himself in the church hall’s bathroom mirror and almost laughed at his beard. By twelve o’clock he’d bought shaving supplies, Coke and day old fruit buns. At one o’clock he fumbled the razor and watched the blood seep into the foam on his jaw, heard, _Bye-bye_ , and felt the pressure of the trigger on his finger. At two o’clock he took out his phone and dialled Sam’s number. _What am I supposed to do now?_ Two rings later Tracey’s polite work voice said, _Hello_ , and he’d hung up.  
  
His hands went next.  
  
In the middle of the night, somewhere in Georgia, towards the end of the third week or the start of the fourth, Andy found a fifty-dollar note tucked into _Philosophical Investigations_. He couldn’t remember putting it there, but shuffled into a 24-hour convenience store and bought hot chocolate, a microwave burger, and a music magazine with Brian Molko on the cover, because Tracey liked Placebo and there was a subheading about hair-rock being the latest new-again thing. _You could have everything you’ve ever wanted_. He smiled at the checkout girl, and the checkout girl glared at him. Back at the van he noticed he was carrying a bottle of Jack Daniels and had already taken a few healthy swigs from it. _I’ve got everything I need_.  
  
When the sun rose, hanging for a few seconds under the clouds, Andy shuffled across the park, and broke his last twenty on a vile-tasting coffee and a fruit bun. A woman in a red tracksuit jogged past and smiled, _I see you_ , and Andy remembered the tension of the trigger under his finger, the way her hair looked against the tiles in the church bathroom, the way his hands shook when he pulled the money from her purse and gently arranged her shirt. _I want all this and two hundred dollars_. The guy grinned big, shiny-yellow eyes, and told him, _I need some space, I’m just confused_. Andy hunched down on the park bench, tearing the corners off pages in his magazine. _Bye-bye_.  
  
Finally, it was his mind. _You be good, Andy_ , they’d said. _Or we’ll be back_. But it was easy, it was so easy, to pull that trigger over and over again.


End file.
